Letters to the Sons of Society: A Father's Invitation to Love, Honesty, and Freedom by Shaka Senghor

Author:Shaka Senghor [Senghor, Shaka]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780593238011
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2022-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

Decision Making

Dear Sekou,

Conventional wisdom says you should never buy a house when you’ve just quit your job and started a business that you have no idea will work or not and the world is on the verge of a global pandemic.

But I did it anyway; I bet on myself. Miraculously, that house is now our home. And although that business no longer exists in the way that I’d originally conceived it, I didn’t need it—we’re doing fine. Sometimes what looks like a decision is actually a miracle, and oftentimes miracles are born out of the decisions we make.

If the world ever wonders if miracles can happen, all it needs to do is look at your hands: magical they are, especially when I hold them in mine or when they write your name or wash your face or lie sweetly beside you as you sleep. I want my love to not only fill your heart but also help you navigate the complexities of the world into which you were unwillingly born. I made so many poor decisions in my childhood—often as the result of trauma. I have been thinking a lot about those decisions.

Making the right choices is a lot harder than picking A or B or C—and picking the right path is one of the most important things you can ever do. It’s not easy; I’ve learned from my bad decisions, and no doubt I’ll make some more going forward—everyone does. That’s just part of being alive. But I do wish someone had helped me make better decisions before I brought down a rain of hell upon my own head. I try not to regret; but sometimes regret is important. Making amends; formulating a true and real apology; and living so that the world can see that you have made lasting changes—this is what healthy regret can look like. I made some terrible decisions, decisions that were worse than most. I paid for them; I had to pay. My dearest wish is that you will never have to pay for anything as badly as I did.

But let’s leave regret to one side for a moment and concentrate on decision making.

The first thing I want to say is that we are trained to believe that there is a right or a wrong way to do things and that deciding which way to jump is as simple as pulling lever A or pushing button B. Should I have just gone on with my life quietly and not decided to tell my story and sell books out of the back of a car and have to be public about the murder? What would my life have been if I’d taken the “easier” road, the road that says, “Keep quiet, get a job, forget your past”? But my experience has taught me that life is not like that, not a simple equation of this or that. There’s a poem by Robert Frost that you will no doubt be taught in school, because it feels as though every poetry class at some point studies this poem.

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